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But it's all over the place , my rocks all have like a light brown slime coat it looks like ! Then it floats in my sump like bubbles and when I run my finger through it I can see it's kinda brownish/creme color ? Not Dino's ?

Hey guys so I tried that paper towel trick where you siphon some of the algae strain it over a glass of water and basically if the algae kinda solidifys you've got Dino's correct me if I'm wrong or I missed something,
Here is the link to the article I found this info on :https://www.*********.com/threads/he...llates.216508/

Sorry.....Looks like the same Demon-Dino's as mine. Hold on tight and enjoy the ride!

Ive been battling for about a month now. Trying and doing everything @mccaroll has suggest. Mine was VERY BAD 2-weeks ago and it has subsided some but i still have some trace amounts starting to pop back up on the sand bed.

Sorry.....Looks like the same Demon-Dino's as mine. Hold on tight and enjoy the ride!

Ive been battling for about a month now. Trying and doing everything @mccaroll has suggest. Mine was VERY BAD 2-weeks ago and it has subsided some but i still have some trace amounts starting to pop back up on the sand bed.

Good Luck!

What have you been doing ?? To be honest I might just start my tank over, I have no fish and very little coral , at this point I'll probably bleach my rock and start over

Here's another weird update after 45 minutes the stuff settled on the bottom of the glass like so

????? Any thoughts as to how to begin my journey battling Dino's ?

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The picture s where you first have it stirred up seems to look like it, however the one showing it slumped on the bottom says something else to me.

When I did this with mine the Dino seemed to remain in suspension; some would drop to the floor but not that much.

My new set up had a mix of orange sand like Dino / diatoms, but also had the odd membrane of cyano in places..

I tried a product called clean M by continuum and bacter M together and within a day or two it was significantly cleaner..

A week or so and the tank was spotless..

Like I've said the 1st Dino I had was very resilient and wouldn't go, the 2nd time i managed to clear it up, you may have a mix of stuff their form what I gather from the photos.. £30 it is worth a try..

Posted this in the wrong forum, so I'm going to copy/paste it over here.

Hey everyone! I need some input on my 60 cube mixed reef.

I think I have a possible aggressive infestation of Dinos. I've had my current setup now for appx four months, and I know what you're thinking (because I thought it too) -- "your tank is cycling... calm down and take it easy young reefer", but this was a transferred tank from a previous build. After moving everything to the new tank a few months ago, I saw a cycle and that came and passed and everything was good up until about a week and a half ago when I thought I was getting a DIATOM bloom.

Stringy brown "algae" coating rocks, sand, glass... everything. Until I saw my pH drop to 7.4~ and the telltale bubbles clinging to the "algae". Edit: When I blow off the "algae" it "grows" back within and hour or less.

Now here's what I need:

1.) Am I crazy for thinking/confirming that these are Dinos and not a diatom bloom from my tank cycling out silicates?

2.) If it is Dinos, what're my courses of action?

-Raise pH with buffer/kalk?
-Hydrogen Peroxide Dosing? (I have stony corals and a full CUC, so this worries me)

RC, I've already lost one nice acro colony, and algae blenny, & and one of my Onyx clowns. Please bestow me some wisdom.

For reference, I'm using Red Sea reef salt, I do 5gal water changes every 2-3 days (and have since about the third or fourth week the tank was running), and here are the current water params:

Posted this in the wrong forum, so I'm going to copy/paste it over here.

Hey everyone! I need some input on my 60 cube mixed reef.

I think I have a possible aggressive infestation of Dinos. I've had my current setup now for appx four months, and I know what you're thinking (because I thought it too) -- "your tank is cycling... calm down and take it easy young reefer", but this was a transferred tank from a previous build. After moving everything to the new tank a few months ago, I saw a cycle and that came and passed and everything was good up until about a week and a half ago when I thought I was getting a DIATOM bloom.

Stringy brown "algae" coating rocks, sand, glass... everything. Until I saw my pH drop to 7.4~ and the telltale bubbles clinging to the "algae". Edit: When I blow off the "algae" it "grows" back within and hour or less.

Now here's what I need:

1.) Am I crazy for thinking/confirming that these are Dinos and not a diatom bloom from my tank cycling out silicates?

2.) If it is Dinos, what're my courses of action?

-Raise pH with buffer/kalk?
-Hydrogen Peroxide Dosing? (I have stony corals and a full CUC, so this worries me)

RC, I've already lost one nice acro colony, and algae blenny, & and one of my Onyx clowns. Please bestow me some wisdom.

For reference, I'm using Red Sea reef salt, I do 5gal water changes every 2-3 days (and have since about the third or fourth week the tank was running), and here are the current water params:

I've been battling Dino's for well over a month now. It was confirmed via microscope with the help of fellow reefers.

My recommendations based on my experience....do not try and fight this with chemicals. Try and do it the natural way. Chemicals just make the issue worst imo.

The only way to truest know if you are fighting Dino's is by looking at the algae under a microscope. But you do have the tell-tail signs of Dino's just by see your NO3 and PO4 undetectable. My first recommendation I would give would be to boost both your nitrates and phosphates. Running a clean system often gets us into trouble with the dreaded Dino's.

If you have Dino's the battle will be long, tough and hard but there are success stories out there if reefers beating this dreaded algae. I'm finally starting to see a slow improvement in my system but it took over a month of raising my N&P and getting rid of 50% of my sand bed.

This is with all of the pumps off after a water change. You can see it stringy sitting in the water column.

On a side note, during the water change, when I was creating a siphon, I got a bit of water in my mouth. I immediately spit it out and rinsed thoroughly with water & a peroxide based mouthwash. I'm wonder what risk there is for poisoning with Dinos?

Im talking about the white stringy stuff. Sorry I couldnt get a better picture of the stuff on the rocks. It's brown-rust colored and stringy with bubbles in it. The stuff sitting in the water column formed after I turned the pumps off and it looks like it's suspended perfectly in the water column.

Im talking about the white stringy stuff. Sorry I couldnt get a better picture of the stuff on the rocks. It's brown-rust colored and stringy with bubbles in it. The stuff sitting in the water column formed after I turned the pumps off and it looks like it's suspended perfectly in the water column.

Yep, I'd say likely dinos.
Just to be clear, you turned off the pumps and the strands released and floated up? Others that have reported that behavior had ostreopsis dinos.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vdubin00

Hey guys so I tried that paper towel trick where you siphon some of the algae strain it over a glass of water and basically if the algae kinda solidifys you've got Dino's correct me if I'm wrong or I missed something,
Here is the link to the article I found this info on :https://www.*********.com/threads/he...llates.216508/

but here are my results
Here is when I strained it out

And here is about 20 minutes later

Am I screwed ??? =(

Textbook positive result. Positive for dinos, that is.
Regathering after paper towel. This is dumb, but could you post pic of kind of paper towel used? I tried it, and nearly no (amphidinium) dinos went through my paper towel.
May need to modify test directions for coffee filter or something.

Most Dino toxins are very similar to palytoxin, it's nasty stuff. If this were a toxic bloom, then mouth swishing with Dino sample would likely cause medical symptoms.
Run GAC in tank to reduce chance of interacting with toxins.

This is not medical advice. But I ran across instructions for treatment in case of ingestion of either saxotoxin or maiotoxin - one of the Dino toxins. It said the patient should drink 125g of a slurry of activated charcoal.
That sounds terrible.

Is the idea to just make the Dinos compete for nutrients? Should I stop skimming/running GFO? Is it worth it to continue dosing hydrogen peroxide ?

My advice...
Stop nutrient reductions (skimming ok).
Dose simple, inorganic forms of N & P.
Run UV or other method to remove the cells from water column.
Siphon any you see.
Run GAC for toxin reduction.
Be patient.

Edit: biocides like h2o2 not advised, and if you've already killed a bunch of stuff with it, then acquiring healthy biodiversity from another system may be necessary.

Hi all -- I've had the same nuisance algae for months now on an established tank. 90G, 1 Yellow Tang and 2 Clownfish, great skimming, 65w UV sterilizer, GFO, Carbon, and a Kessil AP700 light on an 8 hour cycle with 2.5 hours at 80% max. Parameters are all perfect, near zero.

The purple hairs don't have any bubbles -- they just wave around the in current. Are these Dinos and is the right call to add more Nitrate and Phosphate? Should I just get another fish?

Check out post #4404 for the paper towel test referenced there.
If it is dinos, would be great to know what kind forms strings and is indifferent to 65 Watts of UV on a 90gal tank.
(We ought to also be able to devise a peroxide test to distinguish between cyano, spirulina, diatoms, and dinos, as they have radically different sensitivities to being oxidized.)

@taricha...how did you end up beating ostreopsis? My N&P levels have been up for over a month now and ostreopsis is still forming on my sand bed. ive removed 80% of the sand and am about ready to completely remove it all. Not sure it this best or not.

Also, 2 weeks ago i added into my DT cheato from the LFS in hopes this would outcompete the dinos but doesn't look to be helping. UV is still running....